MPLX LP (MPLX) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending September 30, 2022

November 1, 2022 9:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Welcome to the MPLX Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. My name is Sheila and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen [Audio Gap].

Kristina Kazarian

Good morning, and welcome to the MPLX third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. The slides that accompany this call can be found on our website at mplx.com, under the Investor tab.

Joining me on the call today are Mike Hennigan, Chairman and CEO; John Quaid, CFO; and other members of the executive team. We invite you to read the safe harbor statements and non-GAAP disclaimer on slide 2. It's a reminder that we will be making forward-looking statements during the call and during the question-and-answer session that follows. Actual results may differ materially from what we expect today. Factors that could cause actual results to differ are included there as well as in our filings with the SEC.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike.

Mike Hennigan

Thanks Kristina. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. First off, Shawn Lyon will be joining our calls as our new Senior Vice President of Logistics and Storage. Shawn has over 33 years of experience in engineering and leadership roles across our midstream and downstream organization. Most recently Shawn was President of Marathon Pipeline. Dave Heppner will also be joining our calls. He has over 34 years of experience with the company. Dave's role as Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development has been expanded to include a focus on midstream.

Now turning to our business updates. Earlier today, we reported third quarter adjusted EBITDA of $1.5 billion and distributable cash flow of $1.3 billion, both of which represent record results and a 6% increase from the third quarter of last year. These results highlight the performance of our businesses and growth from our recent capital investments.

Based on the strength and continued growth of our cash flows, today MPLX announced a 10% increase in the partnership's base distribution in addition to the $315 million of unit repurchases completed through the first nine months of the year. We continue to view this as a return on as well as a return of capital business. And this quarter, we advanced several organic growth projects.

In the L&S segment, we continue to expand natural gas long haul and crude gathering pipelines supporting the growing Permian. Working with our partners, we are progressing our natural gas strategy with the expansion of the Whistler pipeline to 2.5 billion cubic feet per day, along with laterals into the Midland Basin and Corpus Christi markets, driven by increasing Permian natural gas production, interest for Whistler's additional capacity has been high, and we continue to expect it to come online in the third quarter of 2023.